


Picture Us Together

by redeyedwrath



Series: Sterek Tumblr Ficlets [27]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Artist Stiles Stilinski, Fluff, M/M, Minor panic attack, Nerd Derek Hale, Pushy Friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-08
Updated: 2017-07-08
Packaged: 2018-11-29 11:45:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11440182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redeyedwrath/pseuds/redeyedwrath
Summary: "Today wasn’t even the first time Stiles had drawn Derek - he’s about three-quarters through his sketch pad and he’s sure at least half of those pages are devoted to Derek’s, well, everything."In which, Stiles likes to draw and his muse is Derek





	Picture Us Together

**Author's Note:**

> Hello I am back with another prompt fill!!! This is semi-nerd!Derek, I hope y'all aren't too disappointed with me... 
> 
> Thanks to [Andi](http://sterek.tumblr.com) for looking over this for me!!!

Stiles remembers the start of this year clear as day. He’d been sitting next to Scott, both of them equal parts terrified and exhilarated, and Stiles had _just_ been complaining about how he was going to focus on his studies instead of finding a significant other — stop laughing, Scott — and that’s when _he_ walked in.

 _He_ being Derek Hale: two hundred pounds of muscle wrapped in a package of adorableness, bunny teeth and thick-rimmed glasses. Stiles isn’t ashamed he fell in love at first sight. Well, it was more like lust at first sight. The love came when Stiles discovered he and Derek were in the same History class and Derek always, without fault, knew all of the answers to everything and handed his assignments in three weeks before the deadline.

Scott, the traitor, had told Kira, who’d told Allison, who’d told Lydia, without letting Stiles know, and Stiles is left trying to figure out how the hell this situation got so out of hand.

“What the hell are you all doing here?” he hisses, pushing them away from the window.

“I just wanted to see if your new… _infatuation_ lived up to me, and I must say you have an excellent taste in people,” Lydia says, a smirk on her face as she eyes Derek up and down and honestly? Stiles can’t blame her. He’s done his fair share of ogling himself — maybe more than fair, actually — and although he feels really creepy doing it, he can’t _stop_.

He looks over his shoulder, back at Derek — because Lydia can be subtle, but right now she really, really isn’t — only to find Derek staring back at them, eyebrow raised and _shit_.

“Get out!” Stiles whisper-screams at them, because Derek saw them staring and he’s going to _die._

“Aw come on, Stiles, why don’t you introduce us?” Scott asks, eyes pleading. Normally Stiles would agree to anything Scott asks while he looks like that — something which Scott knows and abuses endlessly — but this is different. This isn’t some stupid prank. This is _Derek freaking Hale_.

“Dude,” Stiles says, leaning back against the window so they can’t look through it anymore. “I’m not even sure if Derek knows who _I_ am, and I’m not just going to introduce a bunch of strangers to him.” Lydia purses her lips, ready to go on the offence, but Stiles continues before she can even start. “Besides, my class will start again soon. I have to be back like, right now. So go eat lunch or something and I’ll catch up with you later. Bye!”

He flees back into the classroom, slamming the door behind him and resisting the urge to lock it. He wouldn’t be allowed to anyway, but it’d make him feel a hell of a lot better. What he _is_ allowed to do, however, is close the blinds in front of the windows, which he does immediately, pretending he doesn’t hear his friends — _ex-friends_ — loud complaints.

The professor clears his throat, looking pointedly from Stiles to Stiles’ seat. Stiles blushes, shooting him a sheepish smile before sitting down. Class starts as soon as his ass touches the seat. Stiles sighs. It’s still as boring as ever: the professor’s monotone voice droning on about stuff he already knows, the classroom dark and warm.

He opens up his drawing pad and starts sketching everything he can see, trying to make it look like he’s actually paying attention and making notes. He sketches the desk, the windows, the clock, the ceiling lamp, before he grows bored of inanimate objects and starts to look for other subjects. Most of the students look as bored as he feels, and they’re dull anyway. He’s about to give up when his eyes land on Derek and — and _oh_.

Derek’s actually focused on the professor, a determined glint in his eyes as he nods along with the things that are said, occasionally looking down to make some notes. His hair keeps falling into his eyes, soft curls sliding forward until he pushes them back with his fingers, fingers that mould into broad palms and strong wrists, the tendons moving under the thin skin —

Stiles sets his pencil against the paper and starts to draw.

—

Like he promised, he does meet up with his friends after class for lunch. They’ve already started without him, of course, so Stiles is the only one stuffing his face with food and probably making a disgusting mess of himself. Usually he has Scott, who also turns into a disgusting mess when he eats, for Bro Solidarity, but Scott is too busy making eyes at Kira to notice Stiles’ glare.

“So, Stiles,” Lydia says, her lips curled in a smirk and Stiles feels his stomach drop. Nothing good comes out of Lydia looking like _that_ , twisting a strand of her hair around her finger. “When are you going to ask Derek out?”

Stiles chokes on the sandwich, coughing harshly and swallowing water until he can breathe again, tears squeezing from the corners of his eyes. He glares at Lydia, but he probably doesn’t look all that intimidating with his face as red as a tomato.

“Excuse you,” he says, voice hoarse, and takes another sip of his water. “What gave you the impression I’d ask him out, like, ever?”

Lydia rolls her eyes, tilting her body towards him, legs crossed and leaning forward. Stiles swallows. He’s about to _get it_.

“I don’t know, actually? Maybe it’s the way you look at him, or the way you wax poetic about his eyes—”

Scott pipes up with a, “Don’t forget his hair, his glasses, his nose, his mouth, his co—”

“Yes, thank you, Scott,” Lydia continues, cutting him off. Stiles would be grateful, he really would be, but Lydia’s talking about him asking Derek out. _Stiles_. Asking out _Derek Hale_. “As I was saying, there’s plenty of evidence that points to you asking him out somewhere in the near future. Also, I might’ve taken a look at your drawing pad while you were buying lunch.”

 _Fuck_. Today wasn’t even the first time Stiles had drawn Derek — he’s about three-quarters through his sketchpad and he’s sure at least half of those pages are devoted to Derek’s, well, everything.

“Lydia!” he yells, hugging his bag to his chest and glaring at her. “That’s invasion of privacy!”

Lydia rolls her eyes and takes a sip of her water, lipstick leaving a small stain on the rim of her glass, long nails clicking impatiently against the side. Stiles would say he hates her, but that’d be a lie. His sketchpad, though, is _his_. His and no one else’s.

“It’s all for the greater good, I promise.”

Stiles huffs. What greater good, killing him by humiliation? Just thinking about going up to Derek and introducing himself makes him want to jump out a window, let alone asking him out on a date. Yeah, no, Stiles is going to stick to pining from afar and stay alive, thank you very much.

“Come on, Stiles,” Kira says, sending him a sweet smile. Stiles feels himself melt a little — there’s just no way to hate Kira. “You can at least sit next to him right? Introduce yourself? It’s not that weird.”

Shit, he thought Kira was supposed to be the _rational_ one. Is everyone really going to betray him like this? Stiles slumps down into his own seat, pretending he’s not pouting. “You’re supposed to be on my side!”

“She’s _my_ girlfriend,” Scott says, pulling her tighter against him and shooting Stiles a glare. Again, Stiles wonders where the Bro Solidarity has gone.

Stiles shrugs, taking a bite out of his sandwich and saying, “Well, she’s the most reasonable of all of you.”

“ _Stiles_ ,” Lydia says, her nose wrinkling in disgust as she stares at his mouth. Stiles promptly shuts it. “Kira’s right. You can just sit next to him during class. You’re making this harder than it has to be.”

“Something’s hard alright,” he mumbles, swallowing the bite. Lydia kicks him in the shin, and Stiles shoots a betrayed glare at her because _really_ , Lydia? Stiles really is going to dump, like, all of them ASAP.

“Come on, don’t be a chicken, Stiles,” Lydia says again, her eyebrows raised and Stiles feels his heart sink. There’s no way this is going to end well for him, not if she’s looking at him like _that_. He glances over at Scott to see if Scott will help him, but the small smile on Scott’s face doesn’t predict anything good either. Fuck.

“Yeah, if you don’t sit next to Derek the next class you two have together, you’ll,” Scott pauses, quickly trying to think of some incentive. If it was anyone else, Stiles might get away from this bet, but Scott has always known what he liked and has never once resisted the urge to egg him on. “You’ll owe me three bags of Doritos.”

Fuck, the _Doritos_. Scott’s serious about this then, if he’s bringing Doritos into this. Stiles leans forward, eyes narrowed as he stares at Scott, hoping Scott will back down, but Scott just smiles back at him, innocent like he doesn’t what he’s doing. Bullshit, Stiles knows, because Scott is sometimes smarter than people give him credit for.

“Doritos, huh?” Stiles says, and Scott immediately nods, smile growing bigger until his dimples come out. Shit, Scott has him. Stiles has taken the bait, he’s gone and done it. “Well, I hope you have 911 on speed dial just in case I get a heart attack because Derek looks at me.”

“Deal,” Scott says, holding out his hand for Stiles to shake, and Stiles clasps it in his own.

“Boys,” Lydia sighs, shaking her head.

Stiles really, really, _really_ hates his friends.

—

The next time he and Derek are in the same classroom turns out to be two days later, on a Thursday, and Stiles is both grateful and pissed off by this little break. Grateful, because it gave him some time to mentally prepare himself for the eventual disaster, and pissed off because his friends won’t stop bothering him about it.

But, he thinks, that might be his own fault, considering he won’t stop bothering them about Derek either. It’s not like he does it on purpose though, sometimes he’s merrily just going about his day when BAM, there Derek’s face is in his mind’s eye in all its gorgeous glory. It’s rude, that’s what it is.

What’s even more rude is Derek’s actual, real-life face. Derek’s not even _looking_ his way, but Stiles already feels his heartbeat speed up at the sight of that dark hair and those cute little ears.

 _Stiles is so fucking fucked_.

He breathes in, out, again, until the urge to throw up has left him, and scans the rest of the classroom for an available seat before he realizes that oh, yeah, he has to sit next to Derek doesn’t he.

The chair left to Derek’s is empty, and he slowly walks over to it, trying his best to delay the inevitable.

“Uh, hey?” he says, waving his hand awkwardly. Derek turns around to look at him, his eyes a mishmash of colors beneath his glasses. Stiles doesn’t realize he’s staring until Derek raises his eyebrows. “Is this seat, uh, free?”

“Yeah,” Derek says, nodding and motioning to seat, looking Stiles over. He’s probably thinking about how inadequate Stiles is in comparison him. “Go ahead.”

Stiles sends him a smile, one he hopes isn’t too excited, and tries to calm his racing heart, sitting down in the seat. Derek smiles back, eyes crinkling at the corners and bunny teeth visible. He quickly puts his bag on the ground, looking away from Derek and grabbing his notebook.

He doesn’t look up until he has to leave and hopes Derek at least finds him acceptable.

—

“Shit,” he mumbles, running his hands through his hair, throwing his notebooks on the ground, resisting the urge to scream because he can’t find his fucking drawing pad and everything’s on there, his commissions, his projects, his — _Derek_. “Shit, shit shit… Scott?! Scott, do you know where my drawing pad is?!”

“Nah, I haven’t seen it since this morning,” Scott says, stretching his arms above his head to wake himself up from his nap. Stiles is _this_ close to murdering him. “You okay?”

“No,” Stiles says, running his hands over his head. “No, Scott. I’m not okay. Do you know why I’m not okay? Because I can’t find my freaking sketchpad.”

Scott frowns, lying back down on the couch and scratching his head. Stiles doesn’t get how Scott can be so chill about this because _nothing_ is chill, everything’s going wrong, what if _Derek has his drawing pad what if he sees those drawings what if —_

“I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

“But I sat next to Derek yesterday because of that stupid fucking dare and what if he has it, Scott, what if Derek has my drawing pad and sees the drawings I made of him and think I’m a creep, he’ll never go out with me then —”

Scott hand lands on his shoulder, squeezing softly, warm through the fabric of Stiles’ shirt. Stiles clenches his hands into fists, scraping his nails over his scalp until his breathing has calmed down a little.

“Look man,” Scott says softly, carefully. “You can’t do anything about it now. You can go search for it tomorrow, but right now you need to focus on something else, okay?”

Stiles can do nothing but nod, his throat dry and fingers shaking. Fuck, he’s so fucking tired and he has a headache. Scott’s hand squeezes another time, and then he says, “Should we watch something? Star Trek?”

Stiles nods again, and settles back into the couch as Scott goes to the kitchen for a glass of water. He sighs — he may complain a lot about his friends, but for all his complaining, he does love them.

—

Stiles has calmed back down again by the time the doorbell rings through their apartment, but the shrill sound has his heart rate increasing again. He presses a few buttons on the remote to distract himself from the possibility that the person standing at the door might be _Derek_.

“Stiles!” Scott yells from the hallway. “It might be better if you take this one.”

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck, there’s no way that isn’t Derek. Right. Stiles can do this. Maybe Derek just found his sketch pad and didn’t look inside it. That’s probably what happened. Stiles is going to be _fine_.

“Right,” Stiles mumbles as he passes Scott. Scott squeezes his shoulder and mouths _talk to him_. “Right, I can do this.”

The door takes an eternity to open, every muscle in Stiles’ body tensed to get the fuck out of there. He peeks around the corner, only to find Derek on the other side, no glasses on and eyebrows raised. Stiles quickly opens the door and pretends he wasn’t acting weirdly, and Derek shoots him a tight smile. _If you love me, God, please kill me_ , Stiles thinks, but it doesn’t work.

“Uh, hi,” Derek says, hands hanging next to his sides, fingers curled around — oh god — Stiles’ drawing pad. “I think this is yours?”

“Yeah, that’s —” Stiles clears his throat, praying that Derek can’t see how red his cheeks are. “That’s mine. Thanks for bringing it back.”

“I just, uh. I wanted to ask you about this?” Derek says, opening the sketch pad to Stiles’ most frequented page, the one where he drew Derek’s profile and managed to capture the slope of his cheekbone and the curve of his nose perfectly. Fuck. Fuck shit this is totally heading in the wrong direction.

Derek thumbs through a few drawings, smudging a few of the pencil lines and Stiles can’t even be met if he wants his face erased from Stiles’ sketch pad, because he’s such a fucking creep, _what was he thinking_?

“It’s fine if you want to draw,” Derek says, still not looking at Stiles. “I think being creative is very cool, but there are a lot of other good-looking people in class and —”

“Yeah, but they’re not you,” Stiles says, quickly, rushing it because he _needs_ Derek to understand how much Stiles lo — how big Stiles’ crush on him is, because Derek is so gorgeous and nice and he deserves so much and _oh god_.

Derek’s just standing there, blinking at him, eyes wide and eyebrows raised. Stiles’ heart is fucking pounding out of his chest, oh jeez, he’s going to throw up, someone get him a trashcan.

“Oh,” Derek says. Stiles doesn’t know what to say to that, but he should say something because this silence is awkward and _something_ needs to happen. He clenches and unclenches his hands rhythmically, trying to distract himself from the current situation. It doesn’t work. “ _Oh_ ,” Derek repeats and Stiles is _dead_ , goodbye cruel word.

“I, uh,” Derek continues, his hand folded in the crook of his elbow. There’s a light flush on his cheeks, coloring the skin a soft pink and Stiles is torn between wanting to sink into the ground, wanting to hug him and wanting to fuck him into the door. “I was actually wondering if you’d be willing to get coffee some time? With me?”

Wait. _Wait_. What? Did Stiles hear that correctly? Did Derek Hale — Derek _freaking_ Hale, Derek _nerdy and fucking gorgeous and probably the love of Stiles’ life_ Hale — ask him out. On, like, a date? Did Stiles die and go to fucking heaven?

“You — you want to have coffee,” Stiles says dumbly, pointing from Derek to himself and back again. His pulse is through the fucking roof right now. “With me.”

Derek nods, slowly, the tips of his ears red, hair spread around it in little curls, and _Stiles is dying oh my god_. “No pressure, I mean, if you don’t want to…”

“I want to!” Stiles says quickly, reflexively taking a step forward and oh, Derek looks even more beautiful up close _oh god_. “A lot, actually, if the drawings didn’t tip you off…”

“Ah, they did. That’s kind of why I’m here.”

“Yeah, I figured,” Stiles snorts, hand hovering awkwardly in the space between their chests. Derek looks down at it, then to his face and back down again, like he can’t believe they’re actually this close, that this is _actually happening_. Stiles almost wants to cry because he feels the exact same fucking way and so much of this melodrama could’ve just been avoided if Stiles had opened his big mouth like he usually does.

“So… coffee?” Derek asks, clasping Stiles’ hand in his and shaking it awkwardly. Stiles would laugh at the situation, would probably laugh if he saw this from someone else’s point of view, but Derek is touching his hand, _their skin is touching_ , Derek is voluntarily touching him —

Derek pulls his hand away, blushing and refusing to look Stiles in the eye. Stiles coughs and scratches the back of his neck. “Coffee, yeah. Just let me grab my stuff?”

“Sure,” Derek says, broad shoulder shrugging. Stiles immediately runs back into their apartment, grabbing his phone and wallet and a coat and quickly putting them on, his hands trembling with adrenaline and excitement and _good things_.

“Scott, cancel the movie ‘cause I have a date!”

Scott whoops from the couch, immediately grabbing his phone to call Kira and gloat about it probably. Stiles would be mad at it for him but he also wants to gloat because he’s going on a date with _Derek fucking Hale_.

Stiles loves his friends.

**Author's Note:**

> Aaaah thanks for reading this lil thing! I hope you liked it ^^ Please lemme know if you did because I am struggling with writer's block at the moment so I feel like this might be kindy shitty I don't know aaah...
> 
> [Hello I have a Tumblr where we have 'Is Derek Hale a Hufflepuff or not' discourse! Come join the party ^^](http://demisexualhale.tumblr.com)


End file.
